Hey y’all! I just purchased a MacBook Air a couple days ago and I am having the WORST time figuring out voiceover. I thought it would work more like my iPhone, but it’s totally different. As you all probably already know. What I’m wondering is, is there anyway to set it up so that it will read out what’s on screen to me as my mouse hovers over it? That would make it so much simpler for me. Having to memorize all these different keyboard commands and key combinations just seems kind of impossible. I’m completely blind so it’s not like I can flip through a user manual or anything. I’ve tried doing the tutorial a few different times and honestly maybe I’m just stupid but it’s not doing me a whole lot of good. 😖🤔😞Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank y’all in advance!

Hello everyone, I hope this post finds you all well! I'm just super curious about something. I'm not sure what brought it to my mind, but I was wondering when you all go to a new area say you moved, or are starting a new job, do you all get o&m instruction? Or is the preference just to use a gps like google maps, and find what's near you and do walking directions? I don't know why, but I've always preferred to get o&m lessons for it. I'm not very well-versed with the whole google maps thing. And the times I have used it with another blind person, albeit super rare, it hasn't actually led us to where we wanted to go, and we ended up asking for sighted assistance anyways. Which was fine, since we weren't in a rush or anything. But yeah, I still prefer o&m lessons when I need to learn a new area and what's around me. Voc rehab doesn't pay for me anymore, but I have an instructor I really like. She and I have worked together for several years, back when dors was paying. Now of course, I just pay her out of pocket. Which actually? While I don't love the cost, I love the flexibility of it. Since I can just get lessons whenever I need, so long as I have the money to pay for it. But I just wonder, how are other blind people navigating their surroundings? I know apps like aira or be my eyes are options too. But holding a camera up in front of me, while someone tells me to move it a little to the right, oh no back to the left, isn't really something I'd find enjoyable, or particularly enlightening about my environment. So yeah, lessons or gps?

I’m at the Colorado Center for blind and I live in the apartment complex there, we have inspections each month which inspired me to ask this question. People who work at centers like this, what is the weirdest or craziest thing you have found when inspecting a student apartment?

Good Morning!

42/m here. Woke up a month ago with full loss of vision in my right eye. After in and out of the hospital for the last few weeks they've diagnosed me with NAION. I lost the bloodflow to my optic nerves and it will never come back.

Now I will say I am truly grateful to have one good eye, however I'm trying to adapt to this new way of life for me. I get constant headaches and feel pressure on my right eye and the difference of one good eye and one blurred eye has me feeling dizzy and depressed. I was thinking of getting an eye patch to just use the one eye day to day. Is this a good idea? Does anyone have experience with this?

Thank you for your help. It's amazing how life can change on you so quickly.

hey y’all, so I’m going to a punk concert today and I really want to be in the mosh pit but I’m kind of scared in terms of safety. I’ve never really mosh before and also I’m kind of short, like 5‘3“ tall. Are there any tips for blind moshing? especially moshing as a feminine person? Thank you!

also, if you remember me from my previous post, thank you!! ❤️

So this is the place where my inner nerd comes out. This is something I collect. I love manuals and tutorials for older assistive technology products. I even have one for the braille mate. Over the past couple of days I’ve been loading up on old manuals from that manuals lib place that has like a bazillion of them. They’ve got more than you would believe. I even have one for the trekker/maestro thing. I wanted to locate one and check it out until I read something in the manual. Apparently, if the battery died, you had to like reinstall everything. Hard pass. Any of you guys have anything like that you’d like to talk about? Nothing is too nerdy over here. I personally find this stuff fun

So my main question is it time I consider an ID cane/is it appropriate for me to use one?

Background: I have bilateral optical disk hypoplasia which reduces my field of vision, I also have corneal scars on my right eye from a severe acanthameba infection that almost cost me my eye altogether. It means I have no right side peripheral vision. I wear glasses because I'm myopic in my left eye (-10), and uncorrectable in my right eye. Im very light sensitive and have a lot of floaters/flashers. All said and done though, I think I do alright. I'm allowed to drive on a restricted license still and generally feel like I can "see". BUT I run into things on my right side or get easily startled because things "magically" appear on that side. I also sometimes struggle with depth perception especially on concrete or similar.

I did have a service dog who helped me notice things on my right more even though he was actually for my PTSD and POTS. He recently passed though and now I'm really noticing that I struggle.

Oh, and I somewhat suspect BVD because crowds or other visually "busy" situations give me massive headaches and dizziness.

Okay, so all that said, I've really thought of getting a button or something that says "visually impaired" or "right side blindness" or i don't even know. But then it dawned on me earlier like why don't I get an ID cane??! But now imposter syndrome is setting in…

So what say you, Reddit? Am I "blind" enough for an ID cane?

Anybody know where I can find out how to use DocuSign to sign forms or initial multiple pages while using voiceover on an iPhone? And as a bonus question is it possible to do this on the windows machine also? Any help would be great. Thank y'all!

sooo anyone know of any free games for the blind on windows? because for some reason it said Crazyparty had trojan scripts? really... just really... but I have quentenC's playroom, RS [which is being a pain] I already use the NVDA screen reader, and I am trying to figure out Alter Aeon because NVDA doesnt read the inputs like the character names and all that such

My other half is blind, I've been with him since before he was fully blind.

I just want to be able to be helpful to him I do stuff but he doesn't seem to appreciate or want it sometimes.

I would just like tops on how to help I a no. Forceful way because I know sometimes I just act when I've not asked about a situation

I am legally blind and colored blind. I am able to drive with use of a bioptic. I can not see yellow or red light during the day due to glare. I also can't read any red LCD displays. About eight years ago I discovered if I get the right shade of red lenses it makes a huge difference. I tried all the colored blind glasses with no real luck, but if I get Red/blue light filtering lenses and combine them with a polarized sunglasses shade it makes a amazing difference and I can see all kinds of light I could t see before, brake light, turn signals, red lights etc etc. Anyway, onto my question, does anyone know where I can get custom color glasses made? My optometrist said they could but then when I actually went to do it the said they were wrong and they couldn't. It would be so nice to just have a nice pair of custom tiniged red glasses instead of having to combine two lenses to get the color I need. For anyone else that has this issue and hasn't tried them check out these glasses as a base and see what it does for you. The lenses alone make a big difference but for me I need them a tad darker so I combine them with some off the shelf sunglasses. It's a pain in the ass but worth it to see the world more like everyone else does.

https://a.co/d/5tyVKnk

I can't be the I ly one that was born this way right?

Hello, friends! I want to start by saying that I acknowledge that I'm incredibly lucky. I live in Philadelphia, PA, and I am working with Wills Eye Hospital.

My team is great. The local vision loss non-profit looks good. However, all the classes and support groups are in the middle of the work day. I have some flexibility with my schedule, but between the intake and services (and navigating public transportation to everything), it's going to be a lot of time away from my work.

Has anyone run into similar issues? How did you handle it?

If it matters, I have RP and am losing peripheral vision. The specialist suggested I could benefit from O&M training, along with some assistive technologies.

Thanks in advance.

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can give me some pointers please anyone with a Surface 11 pro ARM or any other ARM based Windows laptop do you know if text to speech screen reader programs such as NVDA which is open source but developed in Python X86 I believe and Freedom Scientific JAWS for Windows which does have an ARM specific version available as well as built-in Narrator how do these perform? I'd be interested to know if there is any lags when reading busy web pages such as the Outlook/Gmail inbox screens.

I'm running both Freedom Scientific JAWS 25 and NVDA on my Intel based Surface Pro 9 with 8GB ram/256GB SSD with decent response most of the time but there is the occasional lag from time to time nothing I can't work with but I'd love to know if the new ARM laptop/tablet machines behave much better.

Thanks all.

I have a new rescue dog who is a medium sized (35lb) pug/spaniel mix who is between 2-4 years old. He showed up in my yard about 6 weeks ago and my 22 year old daughter and I adopted him when no one claimed him.

I use a white cane with a rolling marshmallow tip and our dog (Remy) is terrified of constant contact with this tip. He’ll either attack it or shut down completely.

Anyone have any suggestions? Would another cane tip be quieter? Will he grow out of this should I try two point touch?

I’d like to hear someone else’s experience with their pet dog as a blind person.

Hey everyone,

It’s been a while since I posted here—I’ve been a little quieter, both in the group and within myself lately. Not sure if it’s reflection or just one of those phases where words take a backseat and the senses start paying more attention.

I recently went on a glamping trip near Pune with some close friends. It was peaceful, playful, and full of starry skies and silly laughter. But beyond the joy of being with people I love, I found myself getting curious— How do I, as someone with low vision, experience travel on my own terms?

I started noticing things I often overlook: the sound of the wind brushing through trees, the texture of gravel under my feet, the comforting crackle of a bonfire. I realized that travel for me is less about “seeing” and more about sensing—feeling the vibe of a place, tuning into its rhythm, and letting the environment speak in its own way.

So I wanted to ask: How do you enjoy travel—not just socially, but sensory-ly? What anchors you to a place? What makes a moment memorable for you when vision isn’t the main tool?

Would love to hear your experiences, rituals, or even funny travel stories. Maybe your way of exploring will inspire a new way for me too.

With warmth and curiosity,

I primarily use Reddit on my computer with JAWS. I used to be able to see the previews of chat messages before actually going into the chat itself, but now it just tells me direct chat with so and so, and I can't see what the message is unless I press enter on the chat. WTF is up with that? Why try to fix something that wasn't broken in the first place?

Anyone have ideas for simple hobbies to work on while listening to audiobooks or podcasts? I also have ADHD, which makes it really hard to just sit and focus on listening to a book. If I'm not moving around or doing something with my hands, I struggle to stop the urge to start scrolling on my phone.

I was thinking about starting something simple that I could do on the couch while listening. My only thoughts are knitting or something similar, but idk if that would be easy enough to do without vision/without having to focus to much.

I'd love some other ideas of things you do to keep your hands busy and how to start out. Thanks for the help!

Hi. I’m visually impaired, it’s been about 8 years. I don’t really know any other people in the blind/visually impaired community. Sometimes I feel like I’m not understood, so I was thinking it would be nice to do some traveling and visit a gathering or conference of some kind and meet and connect with others in this community. Anyone ever been to one and have recommendations?

I grew up in Poland and attended a school for the blind as well as attending a music school for the blind, as you might be able to tell I like the piano... a little bit lol

My vision is slowly getting worse due to my cataracts, and we plan to get this taken are of soon (Cannot come soon enough), but I am just finding that I am very irritated all the timed. I have always been a little like this at work, just a little bit here and there, but have noticed I have really been like this within the past few months, and really in the last few weeks, and in the last few weeks is where I am finding it hard to even just walk to class or work. is this something that is not vision related? am I crazy? or do others get like this as well?

also within the past week I have been tired all the time, making a lot of typing mistakes and even just after 5 hours of work I am dead tired. Thinking it might be because of eye tiredness, but I dont want to make any assumptions.

Edited for clarity and a few things added in (UK) Discrimination? Reality check? Both... Why am I so mad? A while back, I went to the peer with my mom and her friend. There were rides there. Mom wanted to get me a ticket. But she came back, telling me that it was closed or cancelled or whatever. She confessed to me at some point that they didn't want to allow me onto the rides because I was blind Later, I went to thorp park. It had way scarier rides than the ones at the peer. I told my TA about the previous incident, she said it was discrimination. That if it's not safe for me, it can't be safe for anyone else. I litterally can't think of anything that would make it unsafe. Yes. I can follow instructions of what to do, how to get on the ride. I have grip strength to hold on. I can walk, get myself to the seat and climb on. My stomach is stronger than my TA (look up the rides Stelth, Swarm and Nemesis) and know I tried to do each twice. There were photographs and in 99% of them I looked relaxed. Smiling even. I can communicate, tell you if I'm scared or sick. What the fuck is the issue?!!!!!!! I told my father about the peer thing. He said this. (I think my brain is trying to delete the conversation because I found it horrible to sit through) "They have every right." "Risk assessments." "Whether the equipment is up to standard." "Whether they have someone qualified (??)." "Get over it." (maybe not the exact same words but similar message) "We all have limitations." I would also like to humbly point out they didn't even meet me. I thought that was implied but here it is. They never even bothered to confirm whether safety issues were a thing with me! My mom even commented to me that she wouldn't tell the ticket person I'm blind the next time, if there even is one Why are people held accountable for my choices. Why are people assuming things about my abilities. Why am I fine with being blind one second, and hate it the next. Why do I feel like I'm being babied. Why do I feel weak. Why do I feel dumb. Why do I feel so stupid and overemotional. Why do I feel like I had no right in this, that my opinions didn't matter? Are we all overreacting and my dad is right? Are we all stupid and he's the rational one? My day is ruined. And I'm probably just a stupid teenager who doesn't know how to take a reality check. Scratch that. I'm not. I just had people assume things about me. That sucks and I want to be mad. Perks of being disabled, eh?

Hello, everyone.

I have recently lost my remaining vision and am trying to adapt. I wear sunglasses outdoors and in public for practical reasons, but I’m wondering about wearing them indoors with family and friends. I don’t have light sensitivity; I just feel less self-conscious. At the same time, I’m working on self-acceptance, especially since my eyes look normal, with no scarring or cataracts. Should I wear them for comfort or work on overcoming my insecurities? Any thoughts?